Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s episode features Justin Moore.  Justin is the head performance coach at Parabolic Performance and Rehab in Montclair, New Jersey.

Justin has worked with athletes of all ages and abilities, from eight-years-old to professional football players in the National Football League (NFL) and Olympic-level Ice Skaters and Ice Dancers.  He has been highly involved in the process of helping elite college football players prepare for the NFL Combine.  Justin also has advanced knowledge of the concepts of PRI as well as Bill Hartman and other elite coaches, giving him a very thorough lens by which he observes the body in training.  He has previously appeared on this podcast twice, on episodes 78 and 124.

An area of biomechanics and sports performance that is (thankfully) getting more attention is the internal rotation and “knees in” phenomenon that all of the great jumpers in the world utilize (albeit to varying degrees).  If the knees don’t travel inwards in a reactive jump, then elastic energy transfer is lost and an athlete also loses the ability to create a strong triangle structure with their feet and legs.

The question with the “knees in” equation is “when does it become a problem”?  A large amount of athletic performance programs will simply try to coach all athletes into a robotic motion where the knees don’t travel inwards at all in an attempt to avoid injury (and also assuming that the knees traveling inwards is the problem in all athletes) and in the process, rob them of elastic power.  As with anything, there is a bandwidth, just like the concepts of pronation.  Pronation is good, while being stuck in pronation is bad.

To fully understand when the natural and effective internal rotation and “knees in” can become an issue, Justin Moore gives us a thorough explanation, as well as many case study anecdotes.  In this episode, Justin uses a lot of fluid dynamics examples, and takes a lot of work from Bill Hartman to explore deeply this corner of human performance.  This episode is quite intensive and is one of those shows that you truly can study, since the material is quite foundational to the way we observe and train athletes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

Basic mechanics of why knees will rotate in during jumping and squatting from a perspective of pelvic mechanics and thorax hydraulics

How to determine when “knees in” is potentially excessive or problematic and how to approach it

Where to start: feet vs. the hips when there is knee pain in an athlete

Use of the modified Ober’s test to assess adduction capability of the femur

How pressurization of the trunk impacts an athlete’s ability to produce force versus having movement options

How being internally or externally rotated in the femurs can impact standing versus multi-jump performance

 

“We see this (knees in strategy) from the best athletes in the world… when you look at the best lifters in the world, they all do it, when you look at the best jumpers in the world, they all do it”

“As I begin in a standing position, and I descend into a squat, I am going to be externally rotating, and I am going to be inhaling and expanding, and my pelvic floor is going to be descending.  When I hit the sticking point, what I am going to see is a reversal of that.  I am going to see internal rotation, I am going to see exhalation, compression, and ascension of the pelvic floor”

“The pelvic floor ascending is propulsion… it is shooting my guts back up into my thorax as I exhale”

“When I look at somebody who is jumping, I see an individual who is utilizing an internal rotation and adduction moment of the femurs in order to allow them to open the pelvic outlet which allows me to ascend the pelvic floor….

Today’s episode features physical therapists, Ryan Foley and Kyle Paxton.  Together they run the continuing education business: “Integrated Kinetic Neurology”.

Dr. Ryan Foley, co-founder of IKN has worked with a number of high level athletes, and owns Evolve Physiotherapy.  He has studied applied functional neurology methods, specifically Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex, along with other applied neuroscience approaches to help get people get out of pain and improve function. Kyle Paxton’s successes and experiences with neurology based training interventions led him to the development of IKN, and Kyle has strategically shaped the techniques involved in IKN to ensure a practical and effective teaching process of neurology for performance and therapy interventions.

I always enjoy learning about the role of the nervous system in training.  As Kyle mentions early in this show “when you really think about it, everything is neurology”.  The nervous system is a very complex entity, however, and personally I’ve seen loads of “neural” training ideas that can get extremely complicated and involved, leading me to wonder how much the placebo effect is in play and how sustained the results are.

That’s where the practicality and dedication of Ryan and Kyle come in, and today’s show narrows neural training down to the specific sensory inputs of the body: proprioception, vestibular and ocular channels.   Without sensation, we can’t feel safe to move with power and grace, and if I’ve learned anything as a coach, it’s to value the sensory map of an athlete immensely in conjunction with their sport technique.  This valuable episode covers those points, as well as performance topics such as “dual tasking, isometric training integration, and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

Ryan and Kyle’s backgrounds and interest in neurology and performance

The primary sensory systems that contribute to human movement and why they matter

The role of the eyes and intention in human performance

Why bracing the core doesn’t work with the performance principles of neurology

Ways to enhance isometric training using the hands, feet or eyes

“Dual Tasking” and isometric training

Why athletes might place their free hand on a muscle or body region subconsciously during an exercise

How to use the eyes and vestibular system to drive more tone into a body area

Any potential value in balance oriented sensory work prior to heavier strength training

 

“When you really think about it, everything is neurology”

“Sensory feedback both from an internal perspective and external perspective is what drives our ability to respond to the world around us”

“The sensory systems allow you to fully utilize the actual structure that you have”

“If you can start to understand that the proprioceptive system, the visual system and the vestibular system are the primary drivers of how our body can respond to the outside world, then it can really start to change the lens that you look at your programming through”

“When I think of the (core) versus the limbs, there is a lot more purposeful and intentional control to control my limbs in the real world, versus my (core) which is more subcortical and reflexive in movement control”

“The eyes allow us to maintain that smooth coordination through our hands and through our feet.  Whenever I’m doing any isometric work, or any kind of movement based work I typically have a lot of intention through my eyes and the target and I’m putting a lot of importance on how the hands are dissipating load through the limb and how the feet are dissipating load through the lower body”

“I don’t want a lot of noise in my nervous system when I’m trying to move in a particular direction”

Today’s episode features Rafe Kelley, owner of Evolve, Move, Play, a business designed to use movement practice to develop more resilient and embodied humans.  Rafe was a basketball player and gymnast (and gymnastics coach) in his teens, and started in the martial arts at 6 years old, studying Tang Soo Do, Aikido, Kung Fu, Kick Boxing, BJJ and Muay Thai.  He has experience in modern training disciplines such as sprinting, gymnastics, crossfit, FRC, modern dance and many others.

His primary specialization is in parkour, where Rafe co-founded Parkour visions at age 23, and eventually left to form Evolve, Move, Play.  Rafe’s passion to is help people build the physical practice that will help make them the strongest, most adaptable and resilient version of themselves in movement and in life.

When we think of training, we think of lifting weights, growing muscles and quantified training programs.  At the end of the day, this concept of “training” is really a smaller part of the entire paradigm of human movement.  Sports performance coaches tend to think of “movement” as not really being “training”, but when we see things such as the strength to bodyweight ratios of gymnastics, the jumping abilities of basketball/volleyball players, or the dynamic power (and also jumping ability) of a parkour athlete, we realize that play and flowing movement has a critical role in maximizing one’s total development (and do so in a more embodied way).

In this crucial episode, Rafe goes in depth on structured vs. unstructured training ratios, warmup concepts, variability, athleticism and lessons gained from parkour, ideas on complex vs. simple training means and much more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

Rafe’s background in athletics and what led him to the movement practice of parkour

Generalist vs. Specialist considerations in training

Ratios of structured to unstructured training for better athlete engagement and success

Impact of a play-based warmup on subsequent training in a session

Lessons from parkour based training, and it’s impact on more traditional training for outcomes such as vertical jump training

The impact of more complex training means on more simple physical qualities

Rafe’s vision for the future of movement and fitness in our culture

“I think the biggest problem we face in our industry is the problem of motivation”

“We’ve got a 30 billion dollar fitness industry, and we have the most unhealthy population in the world”

“What everybody needs to engage in a physical practice is they need some combination of feeling safe enough, feeling like they are supported properly (having social support and not feeling disapproval) and they need a balance between structure and novelty”

“If you have that 80/20 rule (80% of the results with first 20% of the effort), you want to as a generalist, be in the 20% of all these different practices, but you always need room for play”

“Within my own practice and working with people, I find that I weave back and forth between more structure and less structure….In life we’re always dealing with this balance between order and chaos”

“The tao is the point between perfect order and chaos… the way”

“(Regarding the warmup) We always work on flow, we always work on some games where we are chasing each other, and we work on some games where we are sparring, some body to body stuff”

“I don’t like to start with really structured, rote stuff in the beginning because it bores me.  I like to get emotionally warmed up for a session first, and then I do the hard work”

“We don’t think enough about how much the emotional and cognitive impact of training impacts the training effect”

“We don’t think enough about how much the emotional and cognitive as...

Today’s episode features Chiropractor and neurology expert, Dr. Mark Wetzel.

Dr. Mark is based in Nashville, TN and received his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Northwestern Health Science University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He has a diverse experience and is an expert in the neurology branch of chiropractic care and sports performance.

Last time on the podcast, Dr. Mark went in depth on extreme isometrics, their proper execution, function and physiology (particularly in regards to energy systems), as well as why the 5 minute mark is substantial marker in carrying out the training.  Extreme isometrics and all things related have been of substantial interest on this podcast, not only due to the athletic performance aspects, but also the tendon health portion of the work.

When it comes to extreme isometrics, however, it is much more common to see athletes doing them wrong than right.  Extreme iso’s, as well as much of Jay’s work has almost a mythical quality to it, so nuts and bolts shows that dissect the method are a lot of fun for me, and highly relevant.

On today’s show, Dr. Mark goes further down the isometric rabbit hole, highlighting not only technique, but practical results from his integration of the method into training a baseball team.  He’ll also get into the neurology of muscle compensation patterns, extreme iso’s and extreme slow work, a chat on central nervous system fatigue, breathing, and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

What a “muscle compensation” is and what it means for athletic performance

How extreme isometrics and extreme slows play into (correcting) compensation patterning

The difference between “extreme slows” and traditional 5 to 10 second eccentric training

Mark’s case study work using a series of long isometric holds with a varsity baseball team

When the work of extreme isometrics/extreme slows is finished and you can move beyond them in training

Concepts on tracking central nervous system fatigue

The importance of the eyes in monitoring CNS fatigue

How to perform correct breathing

Ideas on tapering, the modern ideology versus a more progressive view

“When I think of a compensation, it’s altering your movement to make your body breathe more efficiently”

“A compensation: your body is altering homeostasis to make sure you survive in that given moment”

“Our lifestyle is encouraging (muscle) compensations”

“At a high velocity is when your compensation will come out, if we are going slow and steady, we can catch it before we injure ourselves”

“When you look at an isometric, you can tell where their body is immediately faulty (what will materialize in dynamic movement such as sprints)”

“You can use an extreme slow to learn exactly where their compensation is”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that the “perfect position” doesn’t really exist”

“The goal of an isometric is to be as centrally stabilized as possible… you can stabilize a LOT in the lunge, I think that’s what makes the lunge to beneficial you can get a whole body contraction in the lunge”

“If you can hold 5 minute (isometric positions) then we can progress into the weight room”

“We used wall sits, lunges, iso crunch, single leg raise, scap hang, pushup, and prone glute ham where you are laying on your s

“When you do an isometric, you need to be really in tune with yourself and you need to understand what is going on with your body and why you are doing an isometric, and why you are constantly engaging and pulling yourself into position, and if you don’t understand why you are doing that, then you never really should progress out of isometrics”

“An isometric, the purpose to me is that you are eliminating compensations”

“Basically,

Today’s episode features Fergus Connolly, renowned expert on team performance success factors and holistic integration and welcomes back coach Cameron Josse, director of sports performance for DeFranco’s Training Systems.

When it comes to athletics and sports performance, we tend to start in the world of muscles, forces, tissues and exercise physiology.  What isn’t often covered when working with athletes is the multi-factorial considerations that go into actually winning ball games such as game speed, ball speed, technical abilities, tactics and psychological considerations.  One of my favorite quotes on the industry of strength and conditioning is from Mark Watts, which basically says, “don’t take credit for your teams wins when you won’t take credit for their losses”.

Most strength coaches want to be able to play a greater role in what it takes to win a ball game than just getting athletes stronger, since eventually that becomes an end unto itself.  On the flip side, sport coaches having a better knowledge of exactly how strength and fitness (and the specificity of that fitness) fit into gameplay helps the total effort of training athletes become better.  To create a better model that can help all parties working with the athlete work in better cohesion, Fergus and Cameron teamed up to write “The Process”.  which is a follow up to Fergus’s renowned book “Game Changer”, on holistic factors in sport success.

Today’s podcast is all about the big picture in what it takes to win games, write great training programs from a team sport perspective, and integrate the goals of the sport coaches with strength training more optimally.  It also draws many parallels between concepts such as “short to long” in track and field and in the technical development of team sport athletes, as well other similarities in building a “base of technique” and working from “little to big”.  Other concepts discussed include the 4 Coactive Model of athletic success, the importance of a unified model of winning factors, trends in a successful training week, and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

 View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

Why it is important for a strength and conditioning/sports performance coach to understand a unified model of factors that lead teams to win games

The role of fitness and conditioning in a unified model of sports performance, and how “lack of fitness” often takes the fault in a loss

Trends in a successful sport practice training week in team sports/field sports with the goal of optimizing all four elements in the 4-Coactive model

What a “Morphocycle” training template looks like for team sport training

Cameron and Fergus’ take on building game speed and the role of the strength coach

How to optimize sport movement and game speed training from a “small” to “big” manner

“If we have this game model approach, then we can communicate that to the entire staff” ~Josse

“Nobody asks you what your bench is or your squat is when you walk on the field, it’s can you play the game.  If we focus on adding 5 more pounds on a bench or squat, that’s not really solving the problem” ~Connolly

“I see a lot of strength coaches nowadays that want to have too much control over the whole process (of game conditioning)” ~Josse

“The game is what’s most important so we’re looking at all the layers that go into that preparation process leading into that game, and that’s got to align all four co-activates, and by four co-actives, we’re referring to tactical preparation, technical preparation, psychological preparation and physical preparation” ~Josse

“They are starting to understand two key things (the importance of) the alignment and cohesiveness between all the different stakeholders in the team’s operation, and second,

Today’s episode is a special roundtable featuring all previous podcast guests, Jay DeMayo, Jeff Moyer and Michael Zweifel.

Jay DeMayo is a long time strength coach at the University of Richmond, working primarily with basketball along with several other sports.  He also heads up the Central Virginia Sports Performance Seminar and Podcast.

Jeff Moyer is the owner at DC Sports Training and is well versed in all things Russian sports performance, and has appeared on this show multiple times, as well as having written a large number of articles on a variety of topics involving the transfer of training to sport.

Michael Zweifel has been a prior podcast guest twice and has written a large number of articles regarding the perception and reaction approach to improving in-game movement and agility.

In the world of agility training there is a big shift happening in terms of moving things into the perceptual space, and for good reason.  Athletes who fail to make the right decisions in a game will be at a huge disadvantage, regardless of how good their raw ability to change direction devoid of a stimulus is.   Does this mean, however, that all traditional agility and change of direction training is dead? What should we do with all of the more traditional thoughts on agility training in terms of developing the raw physical skills associated with change of direction?

This expert crew is going to dissect the answer to these questions and much more for us on the show today.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points:

Philosophy of what good change of direction on the field of play entails

Thoughts on baseline physical abilities for better change of direction

Change of direction KPI’s for athletes

Different approaches to the value and integration of non-perceptive change of direction work

How to record or quantify the results of an agility program (if this is even possible currently)

Defining pieces of agility ability and who may need work beyond perceptive and decision making training

Some of the special exercises Jeff Moyer and Jay DeMayo utilize in their work

Summary statement of each coach in regards to agility, perception and reaction

“In field based sports, change of direction means the basics of what we are trying to teach, and agility means implementing into a situation where it is responsive to some sort of stimulus”  DeMayo

“I want athletes to be able to solve problems on their own without me giving them the answers” Zweifel

“In the biomechanics of change of direction, you always have to look at it in the context it is going to be asked in sport… if we are going to change technique or biomechanics, we have to do it within the context of which it is going to be asked in sport” Zweifel

“I think that one thing is we would see a lot of carryover and success (into agility) with the integration of some form of extensive method jumping” Moyer

“I don’t think there’s so much a biomechanical model; there’s KPI’s” Moyer

“If you watch sports a lot of athletes don’t (decelerate) on two legs, they do it on one leg… one of the things I look for is how many steps does it take for an athlete to stop” Moyer

“What I hope for is that it looks crisper when they are doing it (COD in sport) and they shouldn’t be thinking about it when they are doing it” DeMayo

“In actual open sports, how well you perceive the information in the environment, that will directly dictate mechanics, kinematics” Zweifel

“(Regarding defining the results of a COD/agility program) A lot of it’s qualitative” Moyer

“It is a learned error, a perceptual error, or a physical error, those are the three things I go through”  Moyer

“Know your sport more, watch practices, get Hudl and look at practice,

Today’s episode features Andy Ryland senior manager of education and training at USA Football since 2010.  Andy was a former Penn State linebacker and a member of the U.S. Men’s Rugby team and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals for successful shoulder tackling.

In youth sports and beyond, cultivating skill acquisition, reactive ability and creativity are foundational in allowing athlete’s success.  In a current landscape where literally no certification or formal education is required to be a sport coach, there is a gap to be bridged in creating systems that help athletes along a great path of long-term development.

Victory-centric team models shortchange multi-lateral development by specializing an athlete in a position early.  Coaches use drills and robotic systems more than they foster situational adaptivity and creative solutions.  If you listened to podcast #136 with James Smith of the “U of Strength” then you likely remember James talking about how robotic he sees sport coaching, and this being a reason why he incorporates perception and reaction work in his own training.

In today’s podcast, Andy digs into a variety of topics on sport skill acquisition and long term development, including the difference between “free flow” and structured sports (and how playing one can enhance the other), bandwidth on cueing and instruction, speed training in context of USA Football, barbell training, selecting a secondary or off-season sport, and more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

The complimentary nature of rugby to football, as well as potential drawbacks in it’s dual sport nature

How “free-flow” sports are different than structured sports by nature, and what athletic skills they develop

Bandwidth on how much instruction young athletes are given, and how much they should be coached as they get older

Speed training development in the context of USA Football

How creating and reacting to situations is more important than canned and robotic drills in building athletes

How to select the best off-season sport or secondary sport for young football players

Progressions on bringing barbell training into youth athletics, particularly in football, the original and pinnacle sport in regards to S&C

Andrews thoughts on the credentialing process of youth sport coaches

 

“I think (rugby and football) compliment each other really well.  You’re gonna get a huge amount of physical training volume from the running volume within rugby, there’s some great evasive skills, plus the reading and spatial awareness is different in rugby than it is in football”

“Free-flow sports, soccer, hockey, basketball, lacrosse, whatever it is; small sided games are much more common, because you are training these players in dynamic environments in decision making, that offense to deference transition that free flow”

“Are we going to let someone self-organize into a tackle?”

“Why on the first rep of the drill are we instantly shouting so many cues and corrections?”

“Sorting it out in your own body can take 2 or 3 reps, so can I let them explore? The coaching cue I give on the first rep of a new drill more than any other is “it’s a new drill, it’s cool, first rep you’ll sort it out, here we go” and let them find it before we start nailing them with all these specific cues and details”

“One of our taglines is “Humans First, Athletes Second, Football Players Third””

“When we are dealing with athletes that aren’t anywhere close to their genetic potential, everything is improving everything”

“For the sake of a coach’s resume, we’re going to have a kid do one thing, and he’s going to be useful for the team because he does one thing,

Today’s episode features Miguel Aragoncillo, strength coach and skill acquisition specialist based out of Boston, MA.  Miguel has worked with athletes of all levels, and now specializes in working with baseball pitchers where he is getting serious results through integration of skill and motor learning tools.  Miguel has a significant background in PRI and worked as an assistant in multiple courses.  He also has a unique athletic backstory, as he was a break-dancer before moving into a coaching role.

Miguel is one of the most intelligent and innovative coaches in the field.  He is pushing human performance forward by integrating what he has learned in the world of strength and conditioning, neuro-mechanics and skill acquisition, and is using that to get results such as tacking 5-7MPH on pitching speed in a matter of minutes.

Our field is still growing at a rapid rate.  Although hard-line definitions of the scope of a strength coach definitely exist in the university and professional sectors, there is no doubt as to the inter-disciplinary nature of sports performance, as well as the impact that the wide-scope of S&C related concepts can have on the next level up on the performance pyramid, that of sport skill itself.  This is something that Mike Guadango mentioned in podcast #151, and has been resonating with me for some time.

Miguel’s intelligent take on the performance industry has been on my radar for some time.  On today’s show, Miguel and I chat about guiding athletes in the process of skill acquisition, through processes on creating drills to improve sport skills, integrating biomechanical and PRI based concepts, and also setting up sport skill training through sensory contrasts.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Miguel Aragoncillo's Key Points

How Miguel got into strength and conditioning, and eventually, into coaching baseball pitchers

How to guide athletes correctly in skill acquisition without over-cueing and over-coaching

Miguel’s thought process on creating drills to improve sport skills

Integrating biomechanics and PRI based concepts into a sport skill teaching process

Setting up sport skill training through sensory contrast

How Miguel sets of resistance training for young athletes outside of actual skill coaching

 

Miguel Aragoncillo Quotes

“If I’m trying to help individuals to throw faster, I can get them to deadlift 500lbs for reps, to have vertical jumps and bounds for so many feet, we can do RSI, etc. etc., but what happens when someone simply doesn’t know what it means to throw”

“You don’t need a lot of drills in order to improve one’s relationship with one’s own body”

“When we do any movement, I show them the movement, and then I ask them, “what do you feel”…. “where do you feel”, “what do you feel”, why do you feel it””

“I’m allowing the individual to self-organize on the context of building a better mental representation of what their body is doing”

“Internal cueing, in my head, is a good thing… because even sometimes the experts will need an internal cue to be more aware of something that they are lacking”

“The funny thing is you are always using some type of constraints, but you are not really thinking of it like that”

“I will literally just say, do you want me to explain this drill, or do you just want to do it”

“Pitching is both a frontal and transverse dominant plane”

“When you do a non-manual technique of some sort to gain range of motion, now you need to go through a guided discovery process doing the terminal skillsets with different constraints, and that’s where it gets fun”

“If you ever watch me coach, I almost never say no… I’ve read a lot of research speaking about negative feedback.  It’s something I’ve picked up and I found out ...

Today’s episode features an expert roundtable on an integrative view of single and double leg (unilateral and bilateral) training.  Experts include Cal Dietz, author of Triphasic Training and University of Minnesota strength coach, Cameron Josse, director of sports performance at DeFranco’s gym (co-author of “The Process”), and Chad Dennis, veteran NCAA and professional level strength coach who is now director of performance for the XFL Seattle Dragons.

Single and double leg training is hotly debated in many cases, each method with its own unique aspects, benefits and drawbacks.  In the majority of situations, single leg training is used as a warmup or auxillary while the “big lifts” dominate the landscape of exercise.  Taking a wider view of these training modalities is important when it comes to optimal integration into our own training.

On the show today, myself, Cal, Cameron and Chad go over many ideas on this topic, particularly the idea of using single leg training as the primary method in earlier training phases (accumulation, GPP, etc.) and moving towards bilateral dominated training in later training phases (intensification, SPP, etc.).

We also take a deep dive into the neurological aspects of barbell (and jump) training, as the ramifications of movements with many, vs. few degrees of freedom (i.e. a walking rotational lunge vs. a heavy quarter squat).   This episode is rounded out by a chat on unilateral jumping progressions and using dynamic work to prepare tissues for the rigors of high intensity training and in-season play.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.

Key Points

A thesis summary of building a foundation of single leg training and then filtering into double leg training

Different approaches to periodization and planning in regards to single and double leg training

Neurological Ramifications of unilateral vs. bilateral training via threat response

Approaches to jump training periodization looking at single and double leg periodization

A discussion on using unilateral work in the weightroom, and on field (jumps and sprints) to prepare tissues of the body for the season

 

Quotes from Cal Dietz, Cameron Josse and Chad Dennis

“I’m looking at a  progression where we start with a foundation of coordination (single leg/more degrees of freedom) and we transfer that into really high outputs (bilateral training)” ~Cam Josse

“Unilateral work favors the cross crawl concept” ~Dietz

“I’m not a big fan of single leg squat with dumbbells, because I don’t feel there is enough stress, in my opinion” ~Dietz

“In the bilateral (lifting and even plyometric), I didn’t get a good neural feedback loop” ~Dietz

“I haven’t found one of my athletes that didn’t go into threat with a double leg, or get better (neurological) responses from a split squat stance” ~Dietz

“How do I fix that threat? I just have them march.  If they do a hurdle hop, the next four steps are marching steps, and that takes them out of that threat as they go to the next exercise” ~Dietz

“There was a great tissue resiliency built from doing (single leg rudiment hops, filtering into bounding over time, as well as a unilateral to bilateral progression in the weightroom) from the joints, especially in the lower leg” ~Dennis

“It makes a lot of sense to use unilateral training in the early during these early periods in the training year, it could be 6-8 weeks, it could be 4 weeks really.  I’m thinking field first, weightroom second” ~Josse

“If you are in the weightroom, it’s naturally multi-planar, just because you are on one leg more degree of freedom are involved” ~Josse

“If we are concentrating speed and power on the field, how do we support that in the weightroom? Bilateral activities” ~Josse

Today’s episode features Doug Kechijian, therapist, coach and owner of Resilient Performance Systems.  Resilient’s clientele includes athletes and operators from a variety of professional and collegiate sports, as well as, federal law enforcement tactical teams, military special operations forces, and those with a history of persistent pain and extensive surgical backgrounds

Before beginning his sports medicine practice, Doug was a Pararescueman in the U.S. Air force where he deployed throughout the world to help provide technical rescue capability and emergency medical care to U.S and allied forces.  Additionally, Doug is the host of the “Resilient Performance Podcast” featuring a number of thought leaders.

Doug is introspective, humble, and transparent.  His diverse experience and education, as well as his own practice of learning and reading has given him an wide lens perspective on many domains of the human performance sector.  As a field (and with anything) it’s easy to make noise, or get noticed, based on extreme viewpoints, often talking about avoiding a common practice in coaching, such as “don’t squat”, “don’t lift weights”, “don’t internal cue”, “don’t do drills”, “don’t foam roll”, etc.

Doug is a coach who really makes me think in his drive to find the truth in things, and avoid the tribe mentality in coaching stances.  In the spirit of that, I wanted to tackle some facets of the field that tend to be looked at in a black and white frame, but in reality are more grey, which is in the realms of rotational core training, self-organization and when to intervene in coaching versus letting athletes figure things out themselves unimpeded.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

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Key Points

Doug’s transition from the military to physical therapy and his approach to learning and growing in the field

Concepts on core-bracing and anti-rotation versus a more fluid and dynamic view on trunk training

Ideas on self-organization in athletics: when and how to intervene

 

“When you prepare to be good enough at a lot of different things, you recognize patterns and commonalities across these skillsets, across these diverse fields”

“When it comes to learning, people love formulas… but now I realize that learning is a lot more messy”

“There is always this range between being a specialist and a generalist”

“I think reading outside your field is what helps you to connect dots and see the bigger picture”

“Scientists and all us of want to prove certain things, and often times, just confirm our biases”

“If you don’t see the bigger picture, then that’s where we get these silos between strength and conditioning, and physical therapy, and sport coaches, and all of these things exist on a continuum”

“For most people, I don’t know if a palloff press is dynamic enough or challenging enough… you want to integrate that stiffness in a contextually specific way”

“I don’t teach people specific bracing techniques, because people do that stuff reflexively well, with the caveat that you’re putting them in a good position”

“We’ve made lifting weights way too difficult, it’s not calculus”

“Every intervention has un-intended consequences”

“If the key to rotational performance is to relax and get really stiff…. If that’s what we are really chasing from a rotational performance standpoint, if we are tell people when they do these activities to deliberately brace, are we inhibiting their ability to relax?”

“If you only have one way to do something, then under stress, you have no options!”

“I think it’s dangerous to assume that every movement that emerges organically is best for the athlete, because it might not be a choice, so you want to give people choices and at least give them the requisite foundation...